Landis 1992.

Methods	Setting: 3 large county health departments in North Carolina, US Enrolment: participants enrolled from 16 November 1988 to 30 June 1990 Follow up: no follow‐up of index patient reported
Participants	74 HIV‐infected men (51) and women (23) were randomised Inclusion criteria Patients returning for their positive HIV result Patients with sex or needle‐sharing partners whose name they knew Exclusion criteria Previously tested positive for HIV and had no new sexual or needle‐sharing partners Only had partners that they did not know name Had no needle‐sharing or sexual partners during the last year Lived outside jurisdictions of the 3 county health departments or whose partners did
Interventions	Public health counsellor revealed diagnosis, provided standard counselling and explained study before randomisation. After consent partner information was obtained Simple patient referral (n = 35) Index patient had interview with counsellor, discussing the process of notification. Index patient received coloured cards with identification codes to be given to their partner. After 1 month, the counsellor attempt to contact any partner not yet contacted Contract referral (n = 39) Index patient could choose to notify some or all of their partners themselves. Index patient received coloured cards with identification codes to be given to their partner. The remaining partners, as well as those not presenting at the health service after 2 weeks were contacted by the counsellors
Outcomes	PN (through location of partners by counsellors or partners arriving at the health department) Partner tested (clinic records) Partner tested positive (clinic records)
Notes	Ethical approval from the Ethics Committee on the protection of the rights of human subjects of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Randomly assigned no specifications
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details given
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Outcome for each partner of every index patient who was randomised was available
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Outcomes reported in methods section were reported in results section. Trial registries were not searched
Other bias	Unclear risk	Baseline comparability unclear
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Participant and personnel not blinded
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Coded cards were used but it is unclear if it was obvious to personnel whether they belonged to intervention or control group. Unclear who collected the cards and whether person had involvement in study findings